Harry Potter magic is back as five-star play sells out until May 2017
Harry Potter and The Cursed Child sees the old gang in their mid-30s struggling with their past and parenthood
POTTERMANIA is back, and this time it’s Harry’s son taking centre stage.
New play Harry Potter and The Cursed Child has the critics raving — and the fans fighting to get their hands on tickets.
For those who miss out, a book of the script is being released a minute after midnight on Sunday
morning — Harry Potter’s birthday.
It is the most pre-ordered book since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out in 2007.
Hailed as a “game-changing production”, the play has to be seen in two parts, totalling a mammoth five hours, and has won five-star reviews, including from our very own Bizarre.
With the previews out of the way, the curtain officially goes up on Saturday night at London’s Palace Theatre.
Audiences have been sworn to secrecy, with badges handed out urging them to “keep the secrets”. But without spoilers we can reveal there is more than enough to satisfy fans.
The play picks up exactly where the seventh book left off.
In fact, the first scene — which sees Ron, Hermione and Harry gathered to see their kids off to Hogwarts — is almost identical to the last one in the novel.
Now 37, the old gang are all grown up. Hermione is Minister of Magic while husband Ron runs a joke shop.
Harry is an overworked civil servant married to Ron’s sister Ginny and dad to three school-age kids. He is haunted by his past and struggles with his role as a father.
Meanwhile, his youngest son Albus, played by Sam Clemmett, is a misfit, resentful of his father’s celebrity status.
Albus’s only friend is Scorpius Malfoy, son of former bully Draco, who has an identity crisis of his own.
Written by JK Rowling in collaboration with director John Tiffany and playwright Jack Thorne, it is an epic theatrical experience — and something of an emotional rollercoaster too.
Asked if it would reduce fans to tears, JK replied: “If it doesn’t, we’ll be checking your vital signs.”
A cast of 42 is led by Jamie Parker as Harry, Paul Thornley as Ron and Noma Dumezweni as Hermione.
The casting of Swaziland-born Dumezweni caused a stir among some fans, but JK tweeted: “White skin was never specified. Rowling loves black Hermione.”
Here we look at the phenomenon that is the Harry Potter universe — from the books and blockbuster films to the theme park spin-offs, mega-merchandising and beyond.
Money
WITH global earnings already beyond £13.5BILLION,and predicted to top £23bn in the years ahead, Harry Potter is the most bankable wizard of all time.
Author JK Rowling takes a cut of all the spin-off profits, including £1 for every one of the millions of books sold worldwide.
The film series has raked in £5.9billion and shifted around £2.5billion in merchandise, as well as £1.46billion in DVDs, Blu-ray and downloads.
Video games based on the films have raised £537million since 2008, while TV screenings of the final three films have bagged an estimated £383million.
Sales of eBooks through JK’s official website Pottermore have raised at least £70million over the past three years.
The studio tour in Watford alone has made £161million, while profits from theme parks in Japan and the US are thought to dwarf that.
The new stage shows have already sold £127million of tickets, with that figure expected to soar.
Rowling’s personal fortune is believed to be in excess of £580million, although she is famously generous with her wealth.
In 2012 she was estimated to have given more than £100million to charity, though that figure is now thought to be much higher.
Films
SEVEN Harry Potter books were turned into eight epic Harry Potter Films – The Deathly Hallows was split into two parts – which became one of the highest grossing film series of all time.
They made stars of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, who are among the highest earning British actors ever.
Complementing them on screen were some of Britain’s most renowned actors including Helena Bonham Carter, Jim Broadbent, Robbie Coltrane, Ralph Fiennes, Michael Gambon, John Hurt, Gary Oldman, Maggie Smith, Julie Walters, Emma Thompson and the late, great Alan Rickman.
Upcoming movie Fantastic Beasts And Where to Find Them – a prequel set in the Harry Potter universe starring British Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne, Colin Farrell and Jon Voight – is due in November.
It will see JK making her screen-writing debut and the film is the first in a planned trilogy.
WEBSITE
BY the time JK Rowling’s website Pottermore launched in 2011, demand was so high for extra Potter information that many of the initial one million registration accounts were sold by touts on eBay.
Since then, limits have been lifted and millions more fans have signed up.
This June, when a new quiz that sorted fans into one of the Hogwarts school houses was launched on the site, traffic was spiking at 1.5 million visitors every day.
Pottermore offers news, features and previously unpublished stories by Rowling, all relating to Harry’s magical world.
It also sells eBooks of her famous books.
Revelations that Rowling has made on the site include how a young Professor Minerva McGonagall fell in love with a muggle; how the Dursleys met (Petunia was working in an office); and how Draco Malfoy was brainwashed as a child into thinking Harry would be a new, more powerful Voldemort.
Interactive games include choosing your wand, learning to brew potions, casting spells and shopping on Diagon Alley.
Products and attractions
WHEN JK Rowling released the final instalment of the famous series – Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows – in 2007 she vowed that she would “fade back into blissful obscurity”.
She has not exactly been true to her word and the cult books have become a global superbrand, with spin-offs into the worlds of computer games, merchandising and even theme parks.
Since 2012, fans have been able to tour the Harry Potter studios in Leavesden, Herts, while there are full-scale theme parks in Orlando, Hollywood and Japan.
In 2013 Rowling was pursued by Warner Bros for the rights to work on a possible TV series.
She also signed a massive licensing deal with the leisure giant, who made all eight films and run behind-the-scenes tours of the sets.
Warner Bros merchandising now accounts for one third of all Potter profits.
Meanwhile, the US holds an annual Quidditch World Cup – based on the broomstick game Rowling wrote about in the books – which last year hosted 80 teams and 20,000 spectators.
BOOKS
MORE than 450m copies of Rowling’s Potter books have been sold worldwide and the seven-book cycle is the best-selling series of all time.
Translated into 68 languages, the books are distributed in 200 countries.
The last four books continually broke records for the fastest sales, with seventh book Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows selling an estimated 8.3m copies in the US and 3m in the UK in the first 24 hours alone.
Rowling has also penned three spin-offs: Quidditch Through The Ages, the history of her magical broomstick sport, Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, detailing the magical creatures that populate Harry’s universe and The Tales of Beedle The Bard, folktales that all wizards learn as children.
On top of that, there are sticker books and colouring books, as well as a planned Harry Potter Encyclopedia.
And for grown-up Potter fans, there were re-releases of the books with special “adult covers”, designed to minimise embarrassment if you were reading them in public.
Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, the first book in the series, enjoyed a resurgence in March, recording its biggest sales week since 2007 thanks to interest around the new film and stage shows.